Trick Training: Teach Your Dog To Curtsy!

It's an adorable move, and an easy one to capture if your dog is in a playful mood - but if not, don't despair! check out our video and find out how to teach your dog to bow on command!
This is one of my favourite tricks – not least because it’s adorable, but also because it has real-world value too.

Teaching your dog to curtsy (or ‘bow’ if you happen to own a male of the species!) involves luring and capturing a move your dog naturally performs before or during play, commonly known as the ‘play bow.’ This position sees your dog looking at you with excited anticipation, his straight hind legs holding his rear end high in the air whilst his front elbows lay flat on the ground, keeping his head and shoulders crouched low.

Nova’s cue to perform a curtsy is for me to place one foot behind the other and bend my knees – performing a little curtsy of my own! The result is great fun, as it appears that we are curtsying before one another, as if before an ensuing dance or duel! But the play bow can help to diffuse meetings between dogs too, as it’s a gesture recognised amongst canines as an initiation of play. So if your dog has a habit of coming on a little too strong with those of his own kind (raise your paw, Nova) then instructing them perform a play bow can help to communicate to the other dog in question that your dog means no harm, and is nothing more than a loveable, playful buffoon who knows no better. (a.k.a. a Labrador..!)